Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America

It is a collection of fascinating vignettes of Manhattan in the 1920s. This covers everything from Jimmy Walker to gangsters to Texas Guinan to William J Wilgus, the architect of Grand Central Terminal, to beauty entrepreneurs to Fred F French & Irwin S Chanin to Walter Chrysler and his beloved skyscraper. Also included are "Roxy' Rothafel & his magnificent movie palace & the radio boys, Sarnoff & Paley, Jack Dempsey & Gene Tunney, Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig, Duke Ellington & Flo Ziegfeld.

There is something for everyone here if you are interested in New York's history. It was a fascinating time of great change for the great metropolis. The personalities are split up into 27 chapters with each chapter standing on it own. This is good because if you have no interest in boxing you can skip this chapter and move on to a character and subject that interest you. It is well written and moves you along at a quick New York pace.

I enjoyed reading Donald Miller's "City of the Century" 18 years ago. That book is his history of Chicago. While I am a Chicagoan I think this book is much better. I think if you love New York then you will love this book.